


Like Jonah, We'll Be Swallowed Whole

by ackermom



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, i'm a slut for water imagery, takes place during the 4 year timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-26 09:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14399649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermom/pseuds/ackermom
Summary: Jean is a lighthouse, but he is crumbling beneath the waves and he cannot hold Eren forever.





	Like Jonah, We'll Be Swallowed Whole

**Author's Note:**

> title is from [in all my dreams i drown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91bSspuE2I). find me on [tumblr](http://ackermom.tumblr.com/).

****Armin leaves, like people do.

He drifts like the waves, his silver eyes swirling. But he drifts away from the sea and sets his back against the sun. The wind rustles his hair, so he cuts it short and lets the locks drop into the sand. They fall into the craters of his footsteps like echoes of the past, until the tide comes ashore and washes everything away. The water rushes out and his traces are gone.

Armin leaves, and Eren lets him go.

Armin lives between his grasps. Their ships pass on the horizon; he is out of Eren’s reach, but he sails near, ever closer to the shore. Armin lives, but only behind doors that Eren cannot open. Voices echo from the war room, carrying hollow trails down the halls as they draw plans and measure winds. They burn candles until the morning and they sleep, alone, with guns in their heads. There are field tests and expeditions. Each time Armin returns, there is less of him to be seen. Each time, he walks slower, his footsteps firmer, his head further to the ground.

Their ships pass in the night, and Armin breathes as if the wings on his back are nothing but chains dragging him to the depths.

Armin lives, but he lives like a ghost. He is seen only to those who see him back, and Eren sees nothing but someone else’s eyes in the rising tide.

So Eren lets him go.

Eren lets many things go.

Days are quiet in the hollow stone halls, and Eren moves through empty rooms as something rises within him. There are so many ghosts that fleet before his eyes; he cannot remember which ones belong to him. He tries to catch his breath, but instead he swallows seawater and feeds the beasts below. Something lurks in the depths of the ocean, and Eren locks his door to keep himself from sinking too deep.

Swelling currents knock him down. He falls, splashed on the cold floor, his knees burned across the tile, his hands grasping for a stronghold as the world rocks beneath him. The waves build and crash against the shore. Eren holds onto the ground like he is a rock, but he knows that he is weightless in the water.

He lets go of things to hold onto himself; each cut of a line unties him a little more, until finally he floats away.

The nights are cold. Without an anchor, Eren is lost at sea.

He finds Jean’s lantern in the dark. These are nights without stars, and Jean is a quiet guiding light at the peak of the cliff, flickering in and out with the wind. Behind the clouds, the flame is still and silent. He sits with the ocean against his face, and his hair wrinkles from the salt. Beneath the moon he looks young, as if that were so long ago.

Eren finds him there in the night, a beacon between stone and sea, and Jean does not protest when Eren stows beneath his light and holds the flames too close, wishing the warmth was real.

“Build a fire,” Jean says.

His hand touches Eren when he reaches for the lantern. Eren drips with salt, but Jean is warm, like fire.

Jean is a lighthouse and Eren follows him in the darkness. The tide comes in, and though Eren burns his hands on the lines, he holds steady.

They are fire on the waves. They are caught between tongue and shore, and they are grated against the rocks when they catch each other. There are words but there are silences too: great swathes of unspoken shanties sung to the moonlight, when the bed beneath them rocks like eddies swell. The halls are quiet, only the empty sigh of the wind echoing through the nighttime; Jean breathes on Eren’s lips and the wind beats against the sand.

They are hands and legs and fingers like tinder. They are tangled in the waves at their feet, and they cut skin against bare threads. They are far from the shoreline but the sun is on the horizon, and when it comes, the ship is safe in the harbor. Eren is on solid ground, and Jean wears the morning sunlight in his hair.

Heat rises. Fires burn in their stomachs. Jean kisses him like a lover, like they are lost beneath the cloud line and the sun is baking on their brows. A wave rocks the ship, but Jean holds him close. The stone walls are softer. Together they grip the lines, steadfast against the sea. Together they breathe the darkness, the lantern guiding their way.

Sand moves beneath their feet, and though the shoreline shifts towards the sea, the tide does not carry them away.

The water rises again.

Eren sways across the deck, from one wall to the other, hands grasping at stone splinters to catch his balance before he is thrown overboard. He is weightless, and he will be carried away. The waves swing again. He is tumbling across the floor, salt across his face. He can see a light, one that flickers and fades behind the clouds, but it is so far away and the world is closing in. Something echoes from below. Something bellows from above. Thunder builds and he does not know when it will break. Storms are brewing, and Jean is standing in his doorway, the lantern shaking in his hand.

“Talk to us,” Jean says. “Talk to me.”

Eren swallows seawater. He cannot breathe beneath the surface.

Plans are drawn and plans are burned. Stone halls shake, and words echo across the cliffs. Jean’s fingertips leave memories on Eren’s skin. He is sand in Jean’s hands, ever shifting as he slips and turns, leaving only glassy traces that he was ever there. Jean holds him, but still he falls. Guns are broken down and built again. Eren wakes at dawn and cannot see the horizon.

Jean is a lighthouse, but he is crumbling beneath the waves and he cannot hold Eren forever. He is warm like fire. When the tide swells in again, the lantern goes out.

There are storms ahead.

So Eren leaves, like people do.


End file.
